All praise is for Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, and may the peace and blessings be upon his trustworthy Messenger Muhammad (SAW), and as to what follows:
The age we live in today is an age in which our lives are controlled by the world we live in, in which time passes by without us even noticing. As a result of this most people have little time to stop and think about the most fundamental of issues surrounding the very essence of their existence, including many Muslims, especially those who inherited Islam from their parents, and so you find that they have taken their religion for granted, all they know is that their carry the identity of Islam because their parents carried that identity without really trying to understand the true reality of why they were brought into this world in the first place. They fail to realize the true nature of their existence. So even though most of them know that Allah exists and that we are a product of His creation, they often forget to remember that we were created for a specific purpose.
If ten of us try to find out what our purpose is on our own, without considering the Revelation, we might find ten different purposes. This is because most people are confused and they don't really know, and rather than to say "I don't know" they just offer an answer. Think about it: Is our purpose in this life simply to eat, sleep, work, acquire some material things and enjoy ourselves? Is this our purpose? Why were we born? What is the object of our existence, and what is the wisdom behind the creation of man and this universe?
Many who read this may be hearing of these very fundamental and basic questions for the first time in their lives. However, if we look to the Qur'an the answers are there, and so we see that Allah clearly states that He did not create us and the universe without a purpose:
1. "Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day are signs for those of understanding. Those who remember Allah while standing or sitting or lying on their sides, and give thought to the creation of the heavens and the earth, saying, "Our Lord, You did not create this aimlessly, exalted are You, protect us from the punishment of the Fire." [Aal 'Imran 3:190-191]
2. "And We did not create the heaven and the earth and that which is between them aimlessly. That is the assumption of those who disbelieve, so woe to those who disbelieve from the Fire." [Saa'd 38:27]
3. "And We did not create the heavens and the earth and that which is between them in play." [Ad-Dukhan 44:38]
And furthermore we see in the Qur'an that the purpose of our lives is clearly defined:
1. "O mankind, worship your Lord, who created you and those before you, that you may become righteous." [Al-Baqarah 2:21]
2. "And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me." [Adh-Dhariyat 51:56]
These verses were revealed to us by Allah in order to inform us of why we are here, what we should be doing, and where we are heading. Not to benefit Himself nor because He needs our worship, rather because we are in need of Him. We were created for this one reason: to worship Allah and to strive to be the best of deeds.
We have to remember that Allah created life and death so that we may worship Him, and perform that worship in the best manner. That is what our objective should be. Instead of contradicting the purpose of man's existence and acting for the sake of perishable worldly interests, we must fulfill its completion. Our period here is short and being slave to worldly gains results in the corruption of our souls, constant difficulty, worry and poverty.
The Prophet (SAW) said, "Allah says: O Son of Adam, fill your time with My worship and I will fill your heart with richness, and end off your poverty. But if you do not, I would make your hands fully busy (i.e . in worldly affairs) and I would not end off your poverty." (At-Tirmidhee)
So in a nutshell the purpose behind our existence is to recognize the one who created us, to be grateful to Him, to worship Him, to surrender ourselves to Him, and to obey the laws that He has determined for us. It is not enough to say that "I have believed, therefore I have accomplished this purpose." Allah commands us in the Qur'an to enter into Islam completely not partially:
"O you who believe! Enter into Islam completely, and follow not the footsteps of Shaytan. Verily, he is to you an open enemy." [Al-Baqarah 2:208]
And Allah warns us of being from among those who took their religion lightly:
"And the companions of the Fire will call to the companions of Paradise, "Pour upon us some water, or from whatever Allah has provided you." They will say, "Indeed, Allah has forbidden them both to the disbelievers, those who took their religion as distraction and amusement and whom the worldly life deluded." So today We will forget them just as they forgot the meeting of this Day of theirs and for having rejected our verses." [Al-A'raf 7:50-51]
From the above it can be concluded that there is not a shadow of a doubt that we have been informed of our purpose, and were shown the way to achieve it, the choice is now ours.
Muhammad Kamil Ahmad
Madeenah, Saudi Arabia
3rd of March 2007
There is no doubt that scientific method, is a source of knowledge, but it is not the only source of knowledge.
I agree.
Even those who would believe in it as a tool of knowledge, may not be scientists themselves strictly speaking.
I totally agree! I’d say even go so far as to say that every one of us starts to learn the scientific method before our parents permit us out of our cribs! It’s normally described as “learning by experience.” We continue to learn it before we enter school. Further, I advocate that all children, upon entering school, should be shown that they have already learned so much via the scientific method – and I’m very pleased to see that many schools are now doing this, describing the method with “cute phrases” such as “Guess, test, and guess again.”
Maybe there is a scientist who is at the first level of using scientific method in his own field but he does not know much of the other branches of science and hence in his own field he is on the first level but in some other field in which he has studied something or nothing, so in those braches of science he would be genuinely at second level or at the third level, and he would frankly admit it.
Oh, yes, I agree again – although I’d be careful to distinguish “scientific knowledge” (in which, as you point out, everyone has deficiencies) and the “scientific method” (in which even “pre-schoolers” demonstrate their competences).
There may be some people who are not scientists but believe in science as a religion, for which even the science would not support them. They may believe in what they perhaps term as Scientology while they think they are using scientific method, unknowingly as a cover only, actually they are not entitled to it genuinely.
I agree that such is unfortunately the case.
Then there are fields which are genuinely out of the science realm, hence out of its jurisdiction.
Well, that comment causes me to pause. Maybe I can agree with you if the “fields” are some of our amazing flights of imagination – but even in that case, I’m reluctant to suggest that, say, a thousand years from now, people still won’t be able to apply the scientific method to gain knowledge about our imaginations. Maybe you’d give me some example of the “fields” that you were considering.
I therefore request you to please read my last post carefully…
I would be glad to, but please: where is it? I searched for it on this thread, but didn’t see it. Maybe I just missed it (in the heat of other communications). If you have difficulty providing a link, please just describe its location in words.
The human life, a thinking machine with sentiments and a sense of morals; its entire problems do not fall in the realm of science (which generally relate to the material/physical human problems) though we don’t deny its usefulness in its own realm.
Careful of that, however, because science has recently made major progress understanding the evolutionary bases and sociological underpinnings of morals. For example, see the studies by the behavioral scientist E.O. Wilson and, e.g., the 2004 book entitled The Science of Good and Evil – Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule by Michael Shermer. In particular, notice again that in the title of Shermer’s book he uses the phrase “The Science of Good and Evil.” You might even want to glance at the chapter entitled “Morality without Gods” in my online book at www.zenofzero.net .
paarsurry:
I agree.
I would be glad to, but please: where is it? I searched for it on this thread, but didn’t see it. Maybe I just missed it (in the heat of other communications). If you have difficulty providing a link, please just describe its location in words.
I provide the quote again, which he said while discussing about hell:
Three types of knowledge
In these verses God Almighty has dearly set forth that for the wicked the life of hell begins in a covert way in this very world, and if they would reflect they would observe hell in this very life. Here God Almighty has indicated three types of knowledge, namely knowledge by certainty of reason, knowledge by certainty of sight, and knowledge by certainty of experience. This might be illustrated thus. When a person perceives smoke from a distance his mind conceives that smoke and fire are inseparable, and therefore where there is smoke there must be fire also. This would be knowledge by the certainty of reason. Then on a nearer approach he sees the flames of the fire and that is knowledge by the certainty of sight. Should he enter into the fire, that would be knowledge by the certainty of experience. In these verses God Almighty says that knowledge of the existence of hell as a certainty can be acquired in this life through reason, its knowledge through the certainty of sight will be acquired in Barzakh. The intermediate state between death and judgement, and on the Day of Judgement that knowledge would become a certainty by experience.
Unqoute
Thanks
Oh, wow, what you’ve introduced is a huge topic! In philosophy, it’s called the theory of knowledge (or epistemology, where ‘episteme’ is the Greek word for ‘knowledge’). You might want to investigate starting a new thread devoted to the topic, in this forum, or participate in discussions of epistemology at some of the many philosophy forums on the web. I consider the topic to be extremely important – even more important than the topic of this thread, i.e., “the purpose behind our existence”!
Yet, I would agree that all the topics are linked. For example, to address “the purpose behind our existence”, one should address the idea of ‘existence’ (the branch of philosophy called ‘ontology’), but to do that requires considerations about how one gains knowledge (epistemology), both about our existence and our purpose. And as I already stated (and as I explore in detail in my on-line book already referenced), my conclusion is that the fundamental assumption (or premiss) that each of us MUST make (an example in the branch of philosophy called “existentialism”) is how we will gain knowledge.
In view of the depth and breadth of the topic you raise, my response, here, will be extremely superficial – mostly to just list some “cautions”, more information about which you can easily find on the web.
1. When I agreed with your earlier statement that there are many different types of knowledge, I was thinking about some of our “instinctive” and “intuitive” knowledge. For example, instinctively we (as well as other animals) “know” how to keep our hearts beating. Also, intuitively we know that it’s beneficial to the survival of our species to be kind to one another (for example, a dolphin will swim under a wounded dolphin, periodically lifting it to the surface to breathe). Thus, through evolution, we’ve developed a “moral sense”. Similarly, all of us have capabilities to participate in various types of “mystical experiences”, through suppressing some parts of our brains while stimulating others, which is another huge topic and which is currently under intense scientific study (as you can find on the web). My caution, then, is to be careful when addressing such knowledge-topics, because not only are they huge, they’re continuously expanding.
2. In the “simpler case” (already tough enough!) of gaining knowledge about “the reality external to our minds”, care is also needed. For example, your quotation lists three methods, “knowledge by certainty of reason”, “knowledge by certainty of sight”, and “knowledge by certainty of experience”. One needs to be extremely careful, however, when applying all three.
For example, in the case of gaining “knowledge by certainty of sight”, sometimes are eyes can deceive us. For example, referring to your quotation, sometime you can see smoke but no fire.
In the case of gaining “knowledge by certainty of reason”, be extremely careful: thousands of years of experience have shown that the method is extremely dangerous! To explain that statement and to provide examples is too big a task to take up here (I try to do so in my referenced book). Here, therefore, let me just state that deductive reasoning can NEVER generate new information: all knowledge derived from deductive reasoning (even Einstein’s deduction of E = mc^2) is contained in the premisses.
And in the case of “knowledge by certainty of experience” (which is part of inductive logic and of the scientific method), once again one must be extremely careful, but this time because the method can never produce “certainty”. For example, although thousands of experiences may have shown you that your friend is reliable, yet next time, he may not be. That inadequacy with experience (first addressed carefully by the brilliant philosopher David Hume) is the reason why no longer do we use the term “scientific law”; instead, they’re called “scientific principles”, which are “experiences” not yet shown to be wrong. And for the same reason (as first addressed carefully by the brilliant philosopher Karl Popper) we no longer use the word “truth” in science, realizing that “truth” is a concept that has no meaning in the “open system” that we call “reality”; instead, the best we’re able to do is “muddle by” with principles not yet found to be wrong.
I’m sorry to be so superficial, but not only are the topics that you raise huge, I must now “beg off” from this thread (and this forum), since I have so much work to do, trying to post additional chapters of my book. Yet, while bidding “goodbye”, let me wish you well in your inquiries – and add my final “caution” to you, to accept no authority over your mind other than what reality dictates.
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